This week is kicking my butt. Figuratively (at work) AND literally (at play).
Ouch.
After a week off for the half marathon, it was back to Mad Spin on Sunday morning. After 2 hours each week in December and 3 hours in January, the plan for February is 4 hours of spinning. I found it pretty crazy to spin for 3 hours, even though I did just that last month. Still — there’s something about that FOUR hour number that makes me shift from “this is crazy but I still want to do it” to “there is no WAY I’m doing that.” I was not prepared to spin for 4 hours, nor was I prepared to get up at 4 a.m. to get to the gym for a 5 a.m. start.
So I was planning to bail on mad spin for the rest of the season. (In March we start riding outside anyway.) I figured I’d just spin for 2-3 hours on my own schedule.
But this morning one of the mad spin coordinators relented, and decided to open the door a second time at 7 a.m. for anyone who wanted to spin for “only” 2 hours. Sign me up! Two hours starting at 7 a.m. is something I’m willing to do — and something I can actually look forward to instead of dread! So it looks like I’ll be spinning with the group in February after all.
Related to all this is my question of the day, which has to do with my butt. Maybe this is TMI but frankly, my butt HURTS after more than an hour on the bike. And how I wonder if anyone out there has some magic suggestions that could help with with this, ahem, painful problem. My pain tolerance is fairly high, which makes me wonder if everyone’s butt hurts too and they just don’t mention it — or whether there really IS something I could be doing differently. I don’t really think I’m supposed to be feeling it 2-3 days later.
I expected some discomfort in December and January when I was riding again after a long break. But I also expected it to get better and it really hasn’t. In fact, as long as I’ve been doing triathlons, I’ve been complaining about how much my booty hurts after long rides. (This morning? Ouch. And I was wearing bike shorts, not tri shorts, so I had full padding too.) I’ve tried a couple different saddles and currently on an ISM Adamo saddle. It’s better than what I’ve had before but honestly? Still not that great. I’ve heard good things from other women in my tri club about the Cobb V-Flow Max so I’m thinking of trying that one, but buying saddles gets expensive!
You can get super-cushioned saddles. I’m not a cyclist (I cannot imagine cycling for 4 hours!), so I imagine there are drawbacks to this?
The super-cushioned ones that I know of aren’t really good for serious riding/racing. They’re more for cruiser and recumbent bikes.
After that long bike ride I did in Cambodia I couldn’t sit on the hard chair at the dinner table, I had to fall into a nearby papason chair to recover.. stupid bike seats
The Cobb V-Flow Maxx improved my comfort on the long rides dramatically. I had purchased an Adamo, but never tried it. Decided to go with the positive opinion on the Cobb saddle and sold off the Adamo before I tried it. Incidentally they have a Cobb B-Flow Maxx Plus model for 2011 — I don’t know what the differences are between the two.
I think the saddle comfort has much to do with overall fit of your bike. I had no problems on my longest ride last year, 5 hours, but after getting new basebar and aerobars a couple weeks ago, I’ve been struggling. I had no problems with three hours either, until the switch.
At the 3 hour mark this past week after getting the new bars, I “gave” and moved to a spin bike and made it the 4 hours. I already hurt terribly.
JZ had taken a riser out to lower my handlebars to get me in a more “aggressive” position. I fought him on it a bit — I’m not yet an “aggressive” racer, but he convinced me to give it a go. But what a difference it made. So Hubs swapped the riser position back and I’m much more comfortable. I haven’t done a 4 hour ride, but I’ll do 2 hours this weekend on a crazy brick workout and then have a 2 hour ride scheduled for Mad Spin on Sunday. I might ride longer Sunday, to just to make sure it’s comfortable again. I hate changing equipment! Ugh.
Glad I read this…I was just getting ready to buy the Adamo seat. Now I am looking into it a little more. I just know I can’t take anymore riding on the seat that came with my bike!